Mission Comic’s Leef Smith says, “People are so enthusiastic
about Saga that they are giving the soft covers as [gift] books,”
leading him to predict that “the hardcover Saga will be a great
gift item” when one is finally released. Asked if there was a
standout holiday book at Bergen Street Comics, co-owner Tucker Stone says. without hesitation, “Saga,” then quips, “You’re
just going to be talking about Saga for the next few years.” As
was the case with last year’s survey, Saga has been a bestseller
every month in both periodical and graphic novel formats for
every single retailer in our survey with the exception of Quimby’s Books.

Most stores also put DC’s Scott Snyder Batman series andSandman: Overture, a much anticipated addition to the Sandmanseries by Neil Gaiman, in their top three bestselling periodicalsby a wide margin, with Marvel’s Ms. Marvel, a recreation of thecharacter as a young Pakistani-American girl, also making astrong showing when it debuted. While Marvel’s Hawkeye,along with core Batman titles, such as Batman: Black Mirror andBatman: Death of the Family, and various trade paperback collec-tions of bestselling the Walking Dead, were consistently amongtheir top-selling graphic novels between late 2013 and early2014.

Nothing, however, is selling like Saga, which has continuedto experience phenomenal growth. “Saga ,Vol. One was ourbestselling comic the entire year,” says Moss, at the StrandBookstore in New York. “Clearly it’s gaining readers as the seriescontinues.” As word of mouth grows for the series with no signsof stopping, retailers are reporting that sales on other Imagetitles also continue to increase. The Image series Sex Criminals,East of West, and Nowhere Men all seem to be doing well forstores across the board. The Image brand alone seems to beenough to warrant taking a chance on a new comics series re-lease. “Most people [are] giving nearly all of Image’s first issuesat least a flip, if not purchasing them,” says the Beguiling’sChris Butcher. W. Dal Bush went so far as to say that, “for Chal-lengers, it’s really more of a Big Three: Image, Marvel, DC, inthat order. I’d say Image contributes about 25% [to the store’soverall sales].”Most of the retailers we spoke with also reported that they’reseeing customers shifting their dollars away from lower-tierMarvel and DC books to Image and other publishers. “A lot ofMarvel and DC titles are really at the bottom end, but Boom!,